How StormGeo's Special Vessel team is assisting the Rowegains

StormGeo is helping to support the Rowegians for their transatlantic row.

This support includes access to BVS, and FDSS for their onshore support lead Olav to analyze route options. In addition, our RORO & Special vessel team is producing daily forecasts and route guidance, providing Olav with their experienced insight into short, mid, and long range forecasts. The team worked with Olav initially, creating a routing strategy. This involved analyzing past race routes and weather conditions to determine some general thresholds for conditions where the rowers will not be able to perform. We used that information from past races along with short to long-range weather forecasts to create an initial route. Now that the Rowegians are underway, the team has been quick to identify and adjust for changing trends. Considerations on a voyage like this are numerous however; several key factors involved are maximizing performance in the short range, reducing rolling for best comfort and overall distance for the journey. Keeping conditions mostly aft, and avoiding beam and head conditions are critical and the team is continuously monitoring for changes. StormGeo is also providing Olav with active satellite based squall monitoring provided by the offshore group to give the Rowegians some advanced notice for heavier periods of weather on a smaller scale, which would not typically be well resolved in global models over the open water for wind and swell forecasting. With increasing e’ly conditions forecast south of a strong ridge, looks like some challenging days ahead.